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THE TRAVELS OF JONATHAN 

CARVER 



BY 



EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE 



REPRINTED FROM THE 



gimnicatt li^taticul §mtvc 



VOL. XI NO. 2 



JANUARY, ic)c6 




Gift 



-^ 



[Reprinted Irom 'I'he American Histokical Review, Vol. \I., No. 2, Jniiiinry, icp6.] 



THE TRA\'RLS OF JONATHAN CARVER 

It may be questioned whether an)- liook of American antliorsliip 
in the eighteenth century achieved a more instant or a more wide- 
spread international reputation than tiic Tnrrcis nf Jonathan Carver. 
Published in London in 177S, at the turning-point in the .American 
Revolution, it went into a second edition the next year and at the 
same time another edition was issued in Dubhn. A Cerman trans- 
lation was pul)lished in 1780, and a h'rench one in 1784, of which 
there were two issues. In 1796 it was translated into Dutch. In 
addition there were subsequent reissues in Lonclon and Edinluirgh 
and American reprints at Philadelphia, Portsmoutli, New I lamp- 
shire, Boston, Walpole, New Hampshire, and New York. Pilling 
in his Bibliogral'hy of the Algouqiiian Laiiguagrs desciibcs sixteen 
editions and enumerates twenty-three. The hook was not only 
widely popular, but it took high rank among descriptions of Indian 
life. In literary merit it is so far above the general level of Ameri- 
can writing in that period that the late Moses Coit Tyler found it 
difficult to restrain his enthusiasm. Pie ascribes to it " unsurpassed 
value " for its " true and precise information concerning the ' man- 
ners, customs, religion, and language of the Indians ' ". " Resides 
its w'orth for instruction, is its worth for delight: we have no 
other ' Indian book ' more_ captivating than this. Plere is the 
charm of a sincere, powerful, and gentle personality — the charm 
of novel and significant facts, of noble ideas, of humane sentiments, 
all uttered in English well-ordered and pure."'' Surelv a veritable 
oasis in the arid wastes of our literature in the Revolutionary 
period. But neither popular interest nor the enthusiasm of the 
literary historian reveals all the contribution of this unlettered Con- 
necticut shoemaker and soldier to modern literature. From Car- 
ver's Traz'cis Chateaubriand drew not a few of the descriptions of 
Indian customs for his fascinating and poetic J'o\'agc cii . Imcriquc- 
From the same source Schiller derived the language and thought 
for his " Nadowessiers Todtenlied ", familiar to English readers 
through Bulwer-Lytton's translation as " The Indian Death-Dirge ". 

' M. C. Tyler. 'I'lie Literary History of lite Aincncaii Revolution. I. 150. 
^C/. Joseph Betlier, Etudes Critiques ( Pari.s. 1903), the second part of his 
study, ■• Chatcauhriand en Amerique : Verite et Fiction, oil Les Sources," 194^214. 

( 2.S7 ) 



2 88 E. G. Bourne 

In the pages of Carver's Travels the youthful ISryant probably first 
met with the sonorous name which the traveller applied to the great 
river of the unexplored Pacific Northwest, and which the poet used 
so effectively in " Thanatopsis " : 

the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashings. 

Made familiar by the poem, this name, whose origin has baffled 
modern investigation, was soon transferred from the river to the 
territory through which it flowed.^ 

It is from Carver again that have been derived the ordinary ac- 
counts of the massacre of Fort William Henry in 1757, and the 
way in which Major Cladwin in Detroit was forewarned of the 
treacherous attack to be made upon him.- To the student of 
western exploration Carver appeals as the first traveller of English 
speech to explore any part of the interior west of the Mississippi 
River, and the Travels are therefore of primary interest to all in- 
terested in the early history of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Lake 
Superior region. A work so famous in the literature of travel and 
of such presumable importance among the early accounts of the 
Northwest may appropriately be subjected to a critical examination 
with a view to determine, if possible, its real value as an original 
work." 

The author of the Travels is described on the title-page of the 
first edition as " J. Carver, Esq., Captain of a Company of Pro- 
vincial Troops during the late war with France '". To the third 
edition, 1781, is prefixed "Some account of the Author", which 
would be supposed to have been derived from Carver himself. It 
reads as follows : 

Jonathan Carver, the author of the following work, was grandson 
of William Joseph Carver, of \\'igan in Lancashire, who was a captain 

1 The first definite proposal to name the region Oregon was made by Joltn 
Floyd of Virginia in his bill for the occupation of the Columbia River country 
presented in the House of Representatives, January i8. 1822: "When the popu- 
lation of the settlement amounts to two thousand souls, all that portion of the 
territory of the United States north of the 42d degree of latitude, and west of 
the Rocky Mountains, is to constitute a territory of the United States, under the 
name of the Territory of Origon lsic~\" Niles' Weekly Register, XXI. 350. 

2 On this account, which seems not to be authentic, see Charles Moore, The 
Norihivest under Three Flags (New York, 1900), 113 et seqq. 

' I did not get access to the careful paper by John Goadby Gregory on Jona- 
than Carver: His Travels in the Northwest in J / 66-8 (Parkman Club Publica- 
tions No. 5, Milwaukee, 1S96) until after this paper was completed in its original 
form. I am indebted to Mr. Gregory's paper for two or three references which 
have been \'ery serviceable in expanding it. 



Tlic Travels of JoiiatJiaii Carver 289 

in the aniiv under king W'illiam, and served in Ireland with such dis- 
tinguished reputation, that that prince was pleased to reward him with 
the government of Connecticut in New-England, which appears to have 
been the first appointment to that station by the crown. Our author 
was born, anno 1732, at Stillwater, in the province of Connecticut, since 
rendered famous by the surrender of the army under General Bur- 
goyne; his father, who resided at this place, and acted as a justice of 
the peace, died, when he was only fifteen years of age. He had re- 
ceived the rudiments of as liberal an education as could be procured 
in that neighbourhood, and, being designed for the practice of medicine, 
he was soon after his father's death placed with a gentleman of that 
profession in Elizabeth Town, in the same province. A profession that 
requires not only a close and regular attention, but likewise a steady 
perseverance, was not suited to that spirit of bold enterprize and adven- 
ture, which seemed to be the ruling passion of our author, who. at the 
age of eighteen, purchased an ensigncy in the Connecticut regiment, in 
which, as I have been informed, he acquired so much reputation, as to 
obtain the command of a company. Of this event, however, I have not 
found the least mention among his papers, nor. indeed, of any other 
important circumstance of his life till the year 1757.' 

Certainly not an improbable bioijraphy of the atithor for English 
readers, btit yet one which contains many perplexities for the 
iVmerican stiulcnt tuitil he discover.s that it is fictitious! Instead of 
being the grandson of a distinguished English military officer, the 
first royal governor of Connecticut, and of having been born in 
Stillwater, Connecticut, where General Burgoyne surrendered, and 
instead of studying medicine at Elizabeth Towai, Connecticut, and 
later purchasing an ensigncy in the Connecticut regiment, Jonathan 
Carver's e.xtraction and early life were much more ordinary and 
even prosaic." We are indebted to the Reverend Samuel Peters, 
the spicy and spiteful historian of Connecticut, for a more satis- 
factory clue to the birthplace of Jonathan Carver, and to an equally 
imaginary descent. In a deposition made in 1824 to forward the 
cause of the famous Carver claim in Congress Dr. Peters testified 
that he had known Carver since 1754. " He was born in Canter- 
bury, in the colony of Connecticut, near where I was born ; he is 
great grandson of Joii.n' C.\r\'er, the first English governor that 
settled at Plymouth, in New England, A. D. 1620."-' 

After premising that Governor Carver left no male issue, we 
may trace briefly the career of Jonathan Carver of Canterbury, who 

' Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 
1767, and 176S. By J. Carver, Esq., etc. (London. 1781), 1-3. 

2 There is no Stillwater in Connecticut, and Stillwater, New York, was not 
settled until 1750. There is no Elizabeth Town in Connecticut. As for the royal 
governor and the Connecticut regiment, comment is unnecessary. 

' Documents appended to article by D. S. Durrie on " Captain Jonathan 
Carver, and ' Carver's Grant ' ". Collections of the IVisconsin State Historical 
Society, VI. 268. 



290 E. G. Bourne 

appears to be the original of the traveller. Jonathan Carver of Can- 
terbur}-, the date of whose birth is not known, married in that town 
Abigail Robbins in 1746. In 1753 he moved to Xorthfield, Massa- 
chusetts, where he is credited with having made twenty pairs of 
shoes for Moses Field in 1754. In the winter of 1756-1757 Major 
John Burk, of Northfield, raised a compan_v of rangers, in the list of 
which occurs the name of Jonathan Carver, but with no place of 
residence recorded. The names of the members of Burk's company 
captured at Fort William Henry in 1757 have been preserved, but 
Carver is not included.^ Of this Jonathan Carver and his wife 
seven children were born, the eldest in 1747 and the youngest in 
1762. One son, Rufus Carver, was a Revolutionary soldier and 
died after 1837 in Sodus, New York. There are living descendants 
of the daughter Abigail, who married Joshua Goss in 1774. Noth- 
ing further in regard to the military career of this Jonathan Carver 
can be said with positiveness. That this Jonathan Carver is the 
traveller seems well established. Apparently he did nothing for 
and had nothing to do with his family after 1763, and in England 
he married again and had two children. His first wife lived until 
1802. The Reverend Dr. Peters was no doubt kept in ignorance of 
that fact, for he avers in the deposition above mentioned that Car- 
ver " supported a brave character during that war, and ever after a 
moral character ". 

Turning now to the " Introduction " to the Travels, we are in- 
formed that after the treaty of peace in 1763 the author formed the 
project of exploring " the most unknown parts "' of the territory ac- 
quired by England and particularly of familiarizing himself with 
" the Manners, Customs, Languages, Soil, and natural Productions 
of the different nations that inhabit the back of the Mississippi " in 
order to " ascertain the Breadth of that vast continent ", and, having 
done so, to establish a trading-post on the northwest Pacific coast. 
Such a post would " facilitate the discovery of a Northwest Pas- 
sage " and " open a passage for conveying intelligence to China, 
and the English settlements in the East Indies."^ 

The largeness of these ideas in 1763 is apparent and at first 
sight marks Captain Carver as a sort of forerunner of JetTerson and 
of Lewis and Clark. They were, however, substantially the plans 
of the French government in 17 17, and the historian and explorer 

'J. H. Temple and G. Sheldon. History of Northfield. Massachusetts (.Mbany, 
1S75). 300, 418; John Montague Smith, History of Sunderland, Massachusetts 
(Greenfield, Mass., 1899), 283. I am indebted for these references to Judge 
Daniel W. Bond of Boston. 

2 Carver's Travels (1781), i-vi, passim. 



The Travels of Jouafhan Carver 291 

Charlevoix was commissioned to go to America and make the neces- 
sary prehminary studies and report.^ The project, in the end, 
proved impracticable, and all that Carver was able to accomplish 
was a journey from Michilimackinac to the Mississippi by the Fox 
and Wisconsin River route, a voyage up the Saint Peter's or Min- 
nesota River, and, upon his return, the exploration of northern Wis- 
consin and the north shore of Lake Superior. In England Carver 
■ vainly endeavored to enlist the Board of Trade in his plans for 
northwestern exploration. He went to England in 1769 carrying a 
letter of introduction from Samuel Cooper of Boston to Benjamin 
Franklin, who thanked his correspondent " for giving me the oppor- 
tunity of being acquainted with so great a traveller "." After many 
vicissitudes he died January 31, 1780. The first edition of his 
Travels through the Interior Parts of Nortli Auicriea. in tin- Years 
1/66, i/dy, and I/6S was published in 1778, and inscribed to Sir 
Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. The work proper 
consists of an " Introduction," " A Journal of the Travels " com- 
prising 164 pages, and a treatise " Of the Origin, Manners, Cus- 
toms, Religion, and Language of the Indians " comprising 346 
pages, with a short geographical appendix. It is this second and 
larger part, constituting a fairly complete natural history of the 
upper Mississippi valley, that has given Carver's Travels its position 
in the literature of primitive America. It is also this second part 
that invites a more detailed critical examination than it has yet 
received. JNL' attention was first called to the matter some years 
ago when I came upon the following significant comment upon 
Carver and the Travels in a letter which Oliver Wolcott of Con- 
necticut, at that time Auditor of the Treasury of the United States, 
wrote in 1792 to the geographer Jedediah Morse. Wolcott re- 
marks : 

In describing the unsettled northern regions, I perceive Carver is cited 
as an authority. I know not whom you can take for a guide, more con- 
sistently with the present state of public opinion, and yet I suspect but 
little credit is due to the book published in his name. By information 
which I have olitained respecting Carver, I am satisfied that his book 
was compiled under very inauspicious circumstances. He doubtless 
resided a number of years in the western country, but was an ignorant 
man, utterly incapable of writing such a book. When in England he 
was in needy circumstances, and he applied to the government, stating 
that he had made important discoveries, for which he was entitled to 
receive compensation. His notes were inspected by a board, who pro- 
nounced them to be unimportant. A sum of money was however given 
him. nicire in charity to relieve his wants than as a reward for important 

' Parkinan, A Half-Ccninry of Conflict (ed. 1897), II. 4-5. 
2 I'ianl-lin's \i'or);s ( Bigelow eel.), IV. 239. 



292 E. G. Bourne 

services. When his money was expended he renewed his apphcation, 
but was refused. He then abused the administration for having ob- 
tained of him his work, without having paid a proper compensation. To 
silence his clamor, the notes which had been deposited with the officers 
of the government were restored, which were soon after pawned by 
Carver with a bookseller. There is reason to suspect, that the book 
styled Carver's Travels, is a mere compilation from other books and 
common reports, supported by some new remarks which Carver may 
possibly have made. It will therefore in my judgment be most safe for 
the future reputation of your book, that but little credit be given to 
Carver's Travels, except where his accounts are supported by some col- 
lateral authority." 

The source of Wolcott's information I am unable to give. It 
may possibly have come through his Connecticut friends and cor- 
respondents Joel Barlow and John Trumbull, who had been in 
London on different occasions before 1792. Noteworthv in any 
case is Wolcott's positive assertion that Carver was " an ignorant 
man, utterly incapable of writing such a book." 

A year or two later, in reading Greenhow's History of Oregon, 
I ran across a ntore detailed and explicit impeachment of Carver's 
Travels. Cireenhow declared that the longer second part, on the 
Indians, animals, and plants, etc., 

is extracted almost entirely, and, in many parts, I'crbatiiii. from the 
French journals and histories. The book was written, or rather made 
up, at London, at the suggestion of Dr. Lettsom and other gentlemen, 
and printed for the purpose of relieving the wants of the author, who, 
however, died there, in misery, in 1780, at the age of 48.^ 

A\'hether this positive assertion as to the origin of Carver's book 
rests tipon definite information or is a deduction from internal evi- 
dence, I do not know, but Greenhow's convictions were positive. 
In his t?xt he refers (pp. 144-145) to the vagueness of Carver's de- 
scriptions of places, peoples, and things, and to his " many and 
glaring plagiarisms " from authors he disparages. To justify this 
language Greenhow added the following resume in a foot-note : 

In proof that no injustice is here done to Carver's memory, read his 
magisterial and contemptuous remarks on the works of Hennepin, La- 
hontan, and Charlevoix, in the first chapter of his account of the origin, 
manners, etc., of the Indians ; and then compare his chapters describing, 
as from personal observation, the ceremonies of marriage, burial, hunt- 
ing, and others, of the natives of the Upper Mississippi countries, with 
those of Lahontan, showing the conduct of the Iroquois, of Canada, on 
similar occasions, by which it will be seen that Carver lias simply trans- 
lated from Lahontan the zs.'Iio!e of the accounts, even to the s/'ecches of 

' George Gibbs, Memoirs of the .'Sdmiiiislrations of IVasliiiigton ami John 
Adams (New York, 1846), I. 76. 

2 Robert Greenhow, Tlie History of Oregon and California, etc. (Boston, 
1844), 142, note. 



The Travels of Joiiatha)i Carver ^ 293 

the chiefs. Carver's chapter on the origin of the Indians is merely an 
abridgment from Charlevoix's "Dissertation" on the same subject. 
His descriptions of the language, manners, and customs, of the inhab- 
itants of the Upper Mississippi regions, are entirely at variance with 
those of the same tribes at the present day, as clearly shown by the 
observations of Pike, Long, and other persons of unquestionable charac- 
ter, who have since visited that part of America. Keating, in his inter- 
esting narrative of Long's expedition in 1823, expresses his belief that 
Carver " ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, that he 
saw the St. Peter, and that he may have entered it ; but, had he resided 
five months in the country, and become acquainted with the language 
of the people, he would not have applied to them the name of Nando- 
zvessies, and omitted to call them the Dacota Indians, as they style them- 
selves." 

In regard to Keating's Narraliz'e of Long's second expedition 
it ma}- be added tliat in it the indebtedness of Carver's Travels to 
Lahontan was brought to public notice in 1824.^ This is the earliest 
published impeachment of the originality of the Travels that I have 
met with. More specific were the charges noted by Henry R. 
Schoolcraft in his " Journal " inider the date of April 0. 1S23, upon 
completing a careful perusal of llennepin. La Llontan, and Carver, 
undertaken wlien he expected to be selected to head the expedition 
to explore the St. Peter's River which was con(hicted bv Long. 
Schoolcraft writes : 

Carver, who went from Boston to the Mississippi in the latter part 
of the iSth century, is not an author to glean much from. L however, 
re-perused his volume carefully, and extracted notes. Some of the 
stories inserted in his work have thrown an air of discredit over it, and 
caused the whole work to be regarded in rather an apocryphal light. I 
think there is internal evidence enough in his narrative to prove that 
he visited the chief portions of country described. But he probably 
neglected to keep diurnal notes. ^Vhen in London, starvation stared 
him in the face. Those in office to wdiom he represented his plans prob- 
ably listened to him awhile, and afterwards lost sight of, or neglected 
him. He naturally fell into the hands of the booksellers, who deemed 
him a good subject to get a book from. But his original journal did 
not probably afford matter enough, in point of bulk. In this exigency, 
the old French and English authors appear to have been drawn upon ; 
and probably their works contributed by far the larger part of the vol- 
ume after the 114th page (Philadelphia ed. 1796), which concludes the 
" Journal." I think it questionable whether some literary hack was not 
employed, by the booksellers, to draw up the part of the work " On the 
origin, manners, customs, religion, and language of the Indians." Con- 
siderable portions of the matter are nearly verbatim in the language of 
Charlevoix, La Hontan, and other authors of previous date. The 
" vocabulary of Chippewa," so far as it is Chippewa at all. has the 

' William H. Keating, Narrative of an Expedition to tite Source of St. Peter's 

River, Lalic IVinuepceh, Lake of tlie Woods, etc., etc under the command 

of .Steplien H. Long (Philadelphia, 2 vols., 1824), I. 323-324. 



294 ■ ^- G. Bourne 

French or a mixed orthography, which it is not prohable that an Eng- 
hshnian or an American would, dc )iovo, employ.' 

It is an interesting illustration of the elusiveness of much im- 
portant historical information that not one of these four destruc- 
tive criticisms of Carver's Travels ever caught Professor Tyler's 
eye during his many years of reading in American literature, and 
that not one of them is referred to in any of the articles in the 
many works of reference that I have consulted on Carver. Yet it 
is obvious that, if Greenhow's assertions are sustained, Carver's 
Travels, whatever their literary charm, must cease to be considered 
an original work. 

That Carver's first chapter, on the " Origin " of the Indians, is 
merely an abridgment of Charlevoix's " Preliminary Discourse on 
the Origin of the Americans ". with some additions from James 
Adair's The Histor\ of the Auieriean Indians, will not be disputed 
by any one who compares them. As this chapter, however, is a 
summary of scholarly opinion, it might be urged that the most 
to be said is that if Carver wrote it he was too careless of the rights 
of literary property. P.ut if Carver borrows his learning from 
Charlevoix, he was not less dependent upon him and upon La 
Hontan for his observations of Indian life, although he asserts with 
some parade : 

I am able to give a more just account of the customs and manners 
of the Indians, in their ancient purity, than any that has been hitherto 
published. I have made observations on thirty nations, and though most 
of these have differed in their languages, there has appeared a great 
similarity in their manners, and from these have I endeavoured to ex- 
tract the following remarks." 

These, he further notes, are such particulars as he " thought 
most worthy of notice, and which interfere as little as possible with 
the accounts given by other writers ".^ There is little intimation 
here that the writer had Charlevoix's Journal and La Hontan 's Neiv 
J'oyages to North-America, not to say other w-orks, almost con- 
tinually on the table, not indeed to enable him to avoid repetition, but 
to supply many details of intimate observation. For example, our 
author writes of the Indians : " their eyes are large and black, and 
their hair of the same hue, but very rarely is it curled ; they have 
good teeth, and their breath is as sweet as the air they draw in." ' La 
Hontan wrote : " Their Eyes are large and black as well as their 

' Henry R. Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years 
with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers (Philadelphia, 1851), 168-169. 

2 Carver's Travels (1781), 222. 

3 Ibid. Ibid., 223. 



TIic Travels of Joiiatlian Carver 295 

Hair : their Teeth are white like Ivory ; and the Breath that springs 
from their Month in Expiration, is as pnre as the Air that they suck 
in in Inspiration."' 

In regard to Indian composure Carver sa}s: 

If yon tell an Indian that his children have greatly signalized them- 
selves against an enemy, have taken many scalps, and hrought home 
many prisoners. . . . his answer generally is, " It is well.'' and he makes 
very little further enquiry about it ... if you inform him that his 
children are slain or taken prisoners, he makes no complaints, he only 
replies, " It does not signify;" and probalily. for some time at least, asks 
not how it happened." 

La Ilontan wrote : 

If you tell a Father of a Family that his Children have signalized 
themselves against the Enemy, and have took several Slaves, his Answer 
is short. That's Good, without any farther Enquiry. If you tell him his 
Children are slain, he'll say immediately. That signifies iioiiglit, without 
asking how it happen'd !" 

Almost the whole of chapter xii. in Carver, on Indian marriage 
ceremonies, is derived from La Hontan's chapter on " The Amours 
and Marriages of the Savages." 

Perhaps the most notable single passage in Carver's Tnrvcls is 
the funeral speech to the corpse of the Indian warrior, made famous 
by Schiller in what Goethe held to be one of his finest creations, the 
" Nadowessiers Todtenlied." This address is merely a literary 
elaboration of the specimen funeral address given by La Hontan.* 

If we turn to the chapter im tlie practice of war, the obligations 
to Charlevoix are not less considerable. The war speech of the 
chief, tlie ceremony with the wampum belt, and the account of the 
care of the prisoners are drawn from his narrative. ° 

In illustration, the two accounts of the Indian war march are 
here presented in parallel columns : 

Ch.\ri,evoix. Carver. 

They pitch their camp long They always pitch their tents 

before sun-set, and commonly long before sun-set; and being 

leave in the front of it a large naturally presumptuous take very 

space, inclosed with a pallisade, or little care to guard against a sur- 

rather a kind of lattice-work, on prize. They place great confi- 

which are placed their manitous. dence in their Manitous, or hous- 

' La Hontan. Nezc Voyages to Norlii-.hiicnca (London, 1735), IL 6. 

* Carver's Travels, 240. 

'La Hontan, New Voyages, IL 14. 

* Carver's Travels, 399-400 ; La Hontan. iK'civ Voyages, IL 53-54. 

5 Cf. Carver's Travels, 299-300 and 302-303, with Charlevoix, Jouniul cf 
a Voyage to North-America (London, 1761), I. 329 and 331. Also Carver's 
Truz-cls. 330-331. with Charlevoix, Journal, I. 362-363. 

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. .\I. — 20. 



296 



E. G. B, 



ounic 



hold gods, which they always 
carry with them ; and being per- 
suaded that they take upon them 
the office of centinels, they sleep 
very securely under their protec- 
tion." 



turned towards that side on which 
their rout lies. They invoke them 
for the space of an hour, and the 
same thing is done every morning 
before they set out. This being 
done, they imagine they have noth- 
ing to fear, being persuaded that 
the genii take upon themselves the 
office of centinels, and the whole 
army sleeps securely under their 
safeguard. No experience is able 
to undeceive these barbarians, or 
to draw them out of their pre- 
sumptuous confidence." 

Even the description of Indian acuteness in following; a trail, a 
subject which Carver might well have been able to describe m his 
own language, is taken word for word from the English version of 
Charlevoix. 



Charlevoix. 
On the smoothest grass, or the 
hardest earth, even on the very 
stones, they will discover the 
traces of an enemy, and by their 
shape and figure of the footsteps, 
and the distance between their 
prints, they will, it is said, distin- 
guish not only different nations, 
but also tell whether thev were 
men or women who have gone 
that wav. 



Carver. 
On the smoothest grass, on 
the hardest earth, and even on the 
very stones, will they discover the 
traces of an enemy, and by the 
shape of the footsteps, and the 
distance between the prints, dis- 
tinguish not only whether it is a 
man or woman who has passed 
that way, but even the nation to 
which thev belong. 



r.oth writers are conscious that such extraordinary acuteness 
will seem incredible. Charlevoix remarks in support of his state- 
ment : " I was long of opinion that what I had been told of them 
was much exaggerated, but the uniform voices of all who have lived 
and conversed much with Indians, leave me no room to question 
the truth of them." The writer of Carver's Travels, reassured no 
doubt, follows his account with the comment : " However incredi- 
ble this might appear, yet, from the many proofs I received whilst 
among them of their amazing sagacity in this point, I see no reason 
to discredit even these extraordinary exertions of it."' 

So experienced a traveller as Carver might have ventured to 
describe the Indian sledge, the familiar toboggan, in words of his 
own, but instead the description is copied from Charlevoix. 

' Charlevoix, Journal, I. 358. 

2 Carver's Travels, 308-309. 

' Charlevoi.x, Journal, I. 361 ; Carver's Travels. 327-328. 



The Travels of Joiiatlian Carver 297 

Charlevoix. Carver. 

Their sledges . . . are two Their sledges consist of two 

small and very thin boards half small thin boards about a foot 

a foot broad each, and six or wide when joined, and near six 

seven long. The fore part is feet long. The fore part is turned 

somewhat raised, and the sides up, and the sides are bordered 

bordered with small liands. . . . with small bands. The Indians 

Let these carriages be ever so draw these carriages with great 

much loaded, an Indian draws it ease, be they ever so much loaded, 

without difficulty, by means of a by means of a string which passes 

long thong or strap, which is round the breast." 
pass'd round his breast, and is 
called a collar.' 

A veteran of the French and Indian war and a witness of tlie 
Fort \\'illiam Henry massacre must have seen the operation of scalp- 
ing many times, yet the author of Carver's Travels would seem to 
have been somewhat put to it to give an exact description of the 
process. He was no doubt relieved to find the {ollow'ing in James 
Adair's History of the .liiicricaii India its: 

This honourable service is thus performed — They seize the head of 
the disabled, or dead person, and placing one of their feet on the neck, 
they with one hand twisted in the hair, extend it as far as they can — 
with the other hand, the barbarous artists speedily draw their long 
sharp-pointed scalping knife out of a sheath from their breast, give a 
slash round the top of the skull, and with a few dexterous scoops, soon 
strip it off. Thev are so expeditious as to take off a scalp in two 
minutes. " 

The account in Carver's Trazcis reads: 

At this business they are exceedingly expert. They seize the head 
of the disabled or dead enemy, and placing one of their feet on the 
neck, twist their left hand in the hair; by this means, having extended 
the skin that covers the top of the head, they draw out their scalping 
knives, which are always kept in good order for this cruel purpose, and 
with a few dextrous strokes take off the part that is termed the scalp. 
They are so expeditious in doing this, that the whole time required 
scarcely exceeds a minute.* 

The real Carver must have seen the Indian game of lacrosse, 
and if capable of writing the Travels would have been able to de- 
scribe the game ; the case would seem to have been different with 
the author of the Traz'els, for his description of the game is copied 
from Adair. 

'Charlevoix. Journal, I. 336. 2 Carver's Travels, 330-331- 

^James Adair, The History of the Aiiwrican Indians (London, 1775), 387-388. 
* Carver's Travels, 328-329. Chateaubriand copied Carver's description of 
scalping, and lent an extra touch of realism by the added detail that the scalper 
deftly took off the top of the skull, leaving the brain bare, but untouched by the 
knife! See Bedier, Eludes Critiques, 248; Chateaubriand, Voyage en Amirique 
(edition Pourrat. Paris. 1836), 21S. 



298 



t.. G. Bonnie 



Carver. 
As I have before observed, the 
Indians are greatly addicted to 
gaming, and will even stake, and 
lose with composure, all the valu- 
ables they are possessed of . . . 
but the principal and most es- 
teemed among them is that of the 
ball. . . . The balls they use . . . 
are formed of a piece of deer- 
skin ; which being moistened to 
render it supple, is stuffed hard 
with the hair of the same creature, 
and sewed with its sinews. The 
ball-sticks are about three feet 
long, at the end of which there 
is fixed a kind of racket, resemb- 
ling the palm of the hand, and 
fashioned of thongs cut from a 
deer-skin. . . . They are so ex- 
ceeding dextrous in this manly 
exercise, that the ball is usually 
kept flying in different directions 
by the force of the rackets, with- 
out touching the ground during 
the whole contention ; for they are 
not allowed to catch it with their 
hands. They run with amazing 
velocity in pursuit of each other. 
Etc' 

If we turn from the manners and customs of the Indians to the 
animals and products of Jonathan Carver's native land, we find the 
same disposition to rely upon his French predecessors. The buffalo, 
of which he must have seen in his residence among the Sioux more 
than Charlevoix ever did, is described in Charlevoix's words : 



Adair. 
The Indians are much addicted 
to gaming, and will often stake 
every thing they possess. Ball- 
playing is their chief and most 
favourite game. . . . The ball is 
made of a piece of scraped deer- 
skin, moistened, and stuffed hard 
with deer's hair, and strongly 
sewed with deer's sinews. — The 
ball-sticks are about two feet long, 
the lower end somewhat resemb- 
ling the palm of a hand, and which 
are worked with deer-skin thongs. 
. . . They are so exceedingly ex- 
pert in this manly exercise, that, 
between the goals, the ball is 
mostly flying the different ways, 
by the force of the playing sticks, 
without falling to the ground, for 
they are not allowed to catch it 
with their hands. It is surprising 
to see how swiftly they fly, when 
closely chased by a nimble footed 
pursuer ; etc' 



Charlevoix. 
The buffalo of Canada is 
larger than ours; his horns are 
short, black, and low ; there is a 
great rough beard under the muz- 
zle, and another tuft on the crown 
of the head, which falling over 
the eyes, give him a hideous as- 
pect. He has on the back, a 
hunch or swelling, which begins 
over his haunches, encreasing al- 
ways as it approaches his shoul- 
ders. Etc' 



Carver. 
This beast, of which there are 
amazing numbers in these parts, 
is larger than an ox, has short 
black horns, with a large beard 
under his chin, and his head is so 
full of hair, that it falls over his 
eyes, and gives him a frightful 
look. There is a bunch on his 
back which begins at the 
haunches, and increasing gradu- 
ally to the shoulders, reaches on 
to the neck. Etc. 



' Adair, History of the American Indians. 399-400. 

2 Carver's Travels, 363-365. 

3 Charlevoix, Journal. I. 204. * Carver's Traz'cls. 445-446. 



The Travels of Jonathan Carver 299 

Again, the long account of the beaver is condensed from the 
same source ; and the same is true of Carver's accounts of the moose 
and the caribou, the bear, the porcupine, and other animals. 

After these specimens of the manner in which the writer of 
Carver's Travels drew upon different sources, we need not be sur- 
prised to discover that Carver's "A short Vocabulary of the 
Chipeway Language " is almost entirely copied from La Hontan's 
" Dictionary of the Algonkin Language." The copying, however, 
would seem to have been done by one ignorant of the language. 
For e.xaniple, the word " dart " immediately follows " dance " in 
both lists ; but Carver gives, as the equivalent of " dart ", " She- 
shikwee ", which in La Hontan is the name of a particular kind of 
dance. In Carver's te.xt, however (p. 385), " Chichicoue " is a 
medicine-man's rattle. Again La Hontan for " hart " gives " Mi- 
cheoue ", which Carver gives for " heart ". In regard to the struc- 
ture of the language Carver is equally beholden to La Hontan's 
account of the Algonkin : 

La Hontan. Carver. 

The Algonkin Language has The Chipeway tongue is not 

neither Tone nor Accent, nor incumbered with any unnecessary 

superfluous dead Letters ; so that tones or accents, neither are there 

'tis as easy to pronounce it as to any words in it that are superflu- 

write it. 'Tis not copious, no ous ; it is also easy to pronounce, 

more than the other Languages and much more copious than any 

of America.^ other Indian language.' 

The writer of Carver's Travels apparently thought it safe enough 
to give an Algonquin vocabulary for one of the " Chipeway " lan- 
guage ; for he regards the two names as interchangeable, using the 
phrase, " the Chipeways or Algonkins " (p. 414).^ 

The examples that have been given, a few out of many that 
might be cited, are sufficient to show that the allegations of Green- 
how and the conjectures of Wolcott and Schoolcraft were fully 
justified, and that the second part of Carver's Travels is essentially 
a compilation from La Hontan, Charlevoix, Adair, and other sources 
which I have not yet identified. That a traveller should borrow 
some descriptions from preceding travellers does not necessarily dis- 
credit his book, but in this case the borrowings are so extensive and 

'La Hontan, Nc7<' Voyages, 11. jqo. ^ (^a^ver's Trai'els, 416. 

^ The Chippewa belongs to the Algonquin linguistic stock, but in Carver's 
time Algonquin and Chippewa were names of languages apparently as different 
as Dutch and German. See the parallel column vocabularies in Voyages and 
Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader, by J. Long (London, 1791), 196 
et seqq. 



300 E. G. Bourne 

of such a cliaracter that one cannot help suspecting that nearly 
evei ything was borrowed. 

Turning now to the first part or the narrative proper of Carver's 
Travels, is it a genuine record of experience and did he write it, or 
was it written by another from his memoranda or oral recollections? 
So far as I can judge by literary evidence, I should reply that Car- 
ver was the source rather than the author of the narrative. The 
style of the first part is fluent literary English, and apparently is 
from the same hand as the descriptive matter in the second part. 
To pronounce upon the worth of this part of the book first-hand 
intimate knowledge of the field of observation is required. This 
qualification William H. Keating, the scholarly and painstaking 
geologist and historian of Long's expedition to the source of St. 
Peter's River in 1823, possessed in a high degree. The members of 
Long's expedition naturally gave Carver's account a more critical 
scrutiny under more favorable conditions than has been the case 
since or is likely to be in the future' Their general judgment is 
unfavorable. In general it is remarked : " No gentleman of the 
party would be willing to ascribe to Carver a scrupulous adherence 
to truth, (personal observation having convinced them all of the 
many misrepresentations contained in his work.)"- Again, Henne- 
pin estimated the height of the Falls of St. Anthony at fifty or 
sixty feet. 

This height is, by Carver, reduced to about thirty feet; his strictures 
upon Hennepin, whom he taxes with exaggeration, might with great 
propriety be retorted upon him, and we feel strongly inclined to say of 
him, as he said of his predecessor, " the good father, I fear, too often 
had no other foundation for his accounts than report, or at least a slight 
inspection."' 

In regard to the St. Peter's River and to the customs of the 
Sioux Indians, as to which Carver is still referred to as an important 
authoritv, the following comments are selected : 

Carver is the only traveller who states that he visited this river, 
merely from motives of curiosity; but a close perusal of his book, has 
satisfied us that he professes too much. He asserts that he " proceeded 
upon the river about two hundred miles, to the country of the Naudo- 
wessies of the plains, which lies a little above the forks formed by the 
Verd and Red Marble rivers." He states that he resided five months 

1 The late Dr. Elliott Coucs in the notes to his The Expeditions of Zcbulon 
Montgomery Pike (New York, 1895) repeatedly quotes Carver and expresses a 
favorable opinion of his narrative. He does not refer, however, to part 11. 

2 Keating, Long's Expedition (Philadelphia. 1824). I. 277. 

^ Ibid., 297-29S. The actual height as measured by Pike and by Long was 
sixteen and one-half feet. 

* Cf. the bibliography to Livingston Farrand, Basis of American History (New 
York, 1904), 282-283. 



The Travels of Jonatliaii Carver 301 

among the Naudowessies, and that he acquired their language perfectly. 
We are inclined to doubt this: we believe that he ascended the Missis- 
sippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, that he saw the St. Peter, and that 
he may even perhaps have entered it ; but had he resided five months in 
the country, and become acquainted with their language, it is not prob- 
able that he would have uniformly applied to them the term of Naudo- 
wessies, and omitted calling them the Dacota Indians, as they style them- 
selves. ... In his account of the river St. Peter, Carver attributes to 
it a breadth of nearly one hundred yards for two hundred miles, whereas 
at the distance of one hundred and thirty miles it was but seventy yards 
wide, and was found to be rapidly diminishing in size. He also ascribes 
to it "a great depth," which is not the case at any distance above its 
mouth. 

... It is scarcely possible that if Carver had ascended the St. Peter 
two hundred miles, he would have reported without contradicting them, 
the exaggerated accounts of the great extent of this river, or attributed 
to it a rise near the Shining, (Rocky,) Mountains; but besides these 
inaccuracies, some of which may perhaps be partly accounted for by his 
having seen the river at a time when it was unusually high, and when 
a mere brook may have been so much swollen as to be mistaken for a 
small branch of the river, yet we cannot place any confidence in him on 
account of the many misrepresentations contained in his work. Almost 
all that he relates as peculiar to the Naudowessies, is found to apply to 
the Sauks, or some other nation of Algonquin origin. Thus on reading 
to Renville, Dickson, (the son of the late Colonel Dickson,) and to 
several other of the half-Indian interpreters whom we saw on the St. 
Peter, that part of chapter 12th of his work, in which he relates that 
" the Naudowessies have a singular method of celebrating their mar- 
riages which seems to bear no resemblance to those made use of by any 
other nations that he passed through," these men all exclaimed that it 
was fabulous, that such a practice had never prevailed among any of 
the Dacotas, though they believed it to be in use with some of the Algon- 
quin tribes. The practice of having a totem or family distinction, ex- 
ists, as we have already stated, among the Sauks, etc. but it is quite 
unknown to the Sioux, to whom it is attributed by this writer. It is, 
we believe, clearly proved at present, that the land which he claimed 
by virtue of a grant from the Indians, was never conveyed to him by 
them. . . . When chapter 5th of Carver's work [on Indian govern- 
ment] was read to Renville and the other men, they denied the truth 
of its contents ; but immediately recollected the designs of a snake and 
a tortoise, which were affixed to the treaty, no doubt to make it tally 
with the account of their family distinctions contained in that chapter 
of his travels. His vocabulary appears certainly to have been taken 
from the Dacota language; it may have been obtained from the Indians 
along the banks of the Mississippi, but was more probably copied from 
some former traveller, for a reference to old works will prove that Car- 
ver derived much of his information from them, though no credit is 
given to their authors for it.' 

It is clear from the evidence here presented that the Travels 
of Jonathan Carver can no lons;-er be ranked as an authentic record 
of the observations of the supposed author. Schoolcraft's con- 

' Keating. Long's Expedition, I. 323-325. 



302 E. G. Bourne 

jectures as to the origin of the book, supported as they are by Wol- 
cott's early testimony, probably give us the substantial facts. I may 
venture tlie conjecture that in its present form the Travels are the 
work of the editor, Dr. John Coakley Lettsom, who was a volumi- 
nous and facile writer and the charitable friend of Carver. A com- 
parison of the style of the Travels with Dr. Lettsom's other works 
might settle the question, but they have not been accessible to me. 
This conjecture is in some measure supported by the following from 
Nichols's contemporary sketch of Lettsom : 

To the publications before mentioned may be added, the Travels of 
the unfortunate Captain Carver, of which Dr. Lettsom was not only the 
Editor, and wrote the Life, but was at the expence of the publication, 
the benefits of which he appropriated to the amiable afflicted widow and 
fatherless offspring of that brave Officer; supplying the forlorn family, 
besides this, with the means of every comfort that humanity and friend- 
ship could administer, not only till the profits of the book could come 
round, but as long after as was necessary to their accommodation.' 

If my conjecture should be shown to be a fact, we should have 
a curious instance of vicarious plagiarism producing a greater liter- 
arv reputation for the supposed author than the real author acquired 
bv his other works or was attained by any of the works from which 
he drew his material. Li any case. Carver's Travels must now take 
its place in literary history beside Benzoni's History of the New 
World and The Book of Sir John Mandeville.- 

Edw.\rd Gaylord Bourne. 

1 John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century 
(London, 1817), II. 680. 

2 On Benzoni's History of the Mew World, cf. Marco Allegri's critique in the 
RaccoHa Colombiana (Rome, 1892-1896), pt. 5, vol. 3. I37-I54. summarized by 
the writer in Larned, Literature of American History, no. 763. On Sir John 
Mandeville, the article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the essentials. 



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016 096 549 6. 



